piece of twine.
“Here you go, Mister Monroe,” he said, his voice formal, wearing a starched white shirt, black tie, and white store apron that reached the floor. “Best we can do this week. No beef, but there is some bacon there. Should keep if you get home quick enough.”
“Thanks, Glen,” he said. “On account, all right?”
Glen nodded. “That’s fine.”
He turned to step off the porch, when a man appeared out of the shadows. Henry Cooper, Tom’s father, wearing a checked flannel shirt and blue jeans, his thick black beard down to mid-chest. “Would you care for a ride back to your place, Mister Monroe?”
He shifted the bag in his hands, smiled. “Why, that would be grand.” And he was glad that Henry had not come into town with his wife, Marcia, for even though she was quite active in the church, she had some very un- Christian thoughts toward her neighbors, especially an old man like Rick Monroe, who kept to himself and wasn’t a churchgoer.
Rick followed Henry and his boy outside, and he clambered up on the rear, against a couple of wooden boxes and a barrel. Henry said, “You can sit up front, if you’d like,” and Rick said, “No, that’s your boy’s place. He can stay up there with you.”
Henry unhitched his two-horse team, and in a few minutes, they were heading out on the Town Road, also known as New Hampshire Route 12. The rear of the wagon jostled and was bumpy, but he was glad he didn’t have to walk it. It sometimes took him nearly an hour to walk from home to the center of town, and he remembered again—like he had done so many times—how once in his life it only took him ninety minutes to travel thousands of miles.
He looked again at the town common, at the stone monuments clustered there, commemorating the war dead from Boston Falls, those who had fallen in the Civil War, Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam, and even the first and second Gulf Wars. Then, the town common was out of view, as the horse and wagon made its way out of a small New Hampshire village, hanging on in the sixth decade of the twenty-first century.
When the wagon reached his home, Henry and his boy came down to help him, and Henry said, “Can I bring some water out for the horses? It’s a dreadfully hot day,” and Rick said, “Of course, go right ahead.” Henry nodded and said, “Tom, you help Mister Monroe in with his groceries. You do that.”
“Yes, sir,” the boy said, taking the bag from his hands, and he was embarrassed at how he enjoyed being helped. The inside of the house was cool—but not cool enough, came a younger voice from inside, a voice that said, remember when you could set a switch and have it cold enough to freeze your toes?—and he walked into the dark kitchen, past the coal-burning stove. From the grocery sack he took out a few canned goods—their labels in black and white, glued sloppily on—and the wax paper with the bacon inside.
He went to the icebox, popped it open quickly and shut it. Tom was there, looking on, gazing around the room, and he knew what the boy was looking at: the framed photos of the time when Rick was younger and stronger, just like the whole damn country.
“Tom?”
“Yessir?”
“Care for a treat?”
Tom scratched at his dirty face with an equally dirty hand. “Momma said I shouldn’t take anything from strangers. Not ever.”
Rick said, “Well, boy, how can you say I’m a stranger? I live right down the road from you, don’t I?”
“Unh-hunh.”
“Then we’re not strangers. You sit right there and don’t move.”
Tom clambered up on a wooden kitchen chair and Rick went over to the counter, opened up the silverware drawer, took out a spoon. Back to the icebox he went, this time opening up the freezer compartment, and he quickly pulled out a small white coffee cup with a broken handle. He placed the cold coffee cup down on the kitchen table and gave the boy the spoon.
“Here, dig in,” he said.
Tom looked curious but took the spoon and scraped against the icelike confection in the bottom of the cup. He took a taste and his face lit up, like a lightbulb behind a dirty piece of parchment. The next time the spoon came up, it was nearly full, and Tom quickly ate everything in the cup, and then licked the spoon and tried to lick the inside of the cup.
“My, that was good!” he said. “What was it, Mister Monroe?”
“Just some lemonade and sugar, frozen up. Not bad, hunh?
“It was great! Um, do you have any more? Sir?”
Rick laughed, thinking of how he had made it this morning, for a dessert after dinner.
Not for a boy not even ten, but so what? “No, ’fraid not. But come back tomorrow. I might have some then, if I can think about it.”
At the kitchen sink he poured water into the cup, and the voice returned. Why not, it said. Tell the boy what he’s missing. Tell him how it was like, back when a kid his age would laugh rather than eat frozen, sugary lemonade. That with the change in his pocket, he could walk outside and meet up with an ice cream cart that sold luxuries unknown today in the finest restaurants. Tell him that, why don’t you?
He coughed and turned, saw Tom was looking up again at the photos. “Mister Monroe…”
“Yes?”
“Mister Monroe, did you really go to the stars? Did you?”
Rick smiled, glad to see the curiosity in the boy’s face, and not fear. “Well, I guess I got as close as anyone could, back then. You see—”
The boy’s father yelled from outside. “Tom! Time to go! Come on out!”
Rick said, “Guess you have to listen to your dad, son. Tell you what, next time you come back, I’ll tell you everything you want to know. Deal?”
The boy nodded and ran out of the kitchen. His hips were still aching and he thought about lying down before going through the mail, but he made his way outside, where Tom was up on the wagon. Henry came up and offered his hand, and Rick shook it, glad that Henry wasn’t one to try the strength test with someone as old as he. Henry said,
“Have a word with you, Mister Monroe?”
“Sure,” he said. “But only if you call me Rick.”
From behind the thick beard, he thought he could detect a smile. “All right… Rick.”
They both sat down on old wicker rocking chairs and Henry said, “I’ll get right to it, Rick.”
“Okay.”
“There’s a town meeting tonight. I think you should go.”
“Why?”
“Because… well, there’s some stirrings. That’s all. About a special committee being set up. A morals committee, to ensure that only the right people live here in Boston Falls.”
“And who decides who are the right people?” he asked, finding it hard to believe this conversation was actually taking place.
Henry seemed embarrassed. “The committee and the selectmen, I guess… you see, there’s word down south, about some of the towns there, they still got trouble with refugees and transients rolling in from Connecticut and New York. Some of those towns, the natives, they’re being overwhelmed, outvoted, and they’re not the same anymore.
And since you, um—”
“I was born here, Henry. You know that. Just because I lived someplace else for a long time, that’s held against me?”
“Well, I’m just sayin’ it’s not going to help… with what you did back then, and the fact you don’t go to church, and other things, well… it might be worthwhile if you go there.
That’s all. To defend yourself.”
Even with the hot weather, Rick was feeling a cold touch upon his hands. Now we’re really taking a step back, he thought. Like the Nuremberg laws, in Nazi Germany.
